ery large square house.

"There's a curious place," said Michael. "How on earth does one get at
it?"

They followed the road, which was considerably higher than the level of
the canal, and found that the front door was reached by an entrance down
a flight of steps.

"Ararat House," Michael read.

"Flat to let," Maurice read.

"I think this looks rather promising," said Michael.

It was an extraordinary pile, built in some Palladian nightmare. A
portico of dull crimson columns ran round three sides of the house,
under a frieze of bearded masks. The windows were all very large, and so
irregularly placed as completely to destroy the classic illusion. The
stucco had been painted a color that was neither pink nor cream nor
buff, but a mixture of all three; and every bit of space left by the
windows was filled with banderoles of illegible inscriptions and with
plaster garlands, horns, lyres, urns, and Grecian helmets. There must
have been half an acre of garden round it, a wilderness of shrubs and
rank grass with here and there a dislustered conservatory. The house
would have seemed uninhabitable save for the announcement of the flat to
be let, which was painted on a board roped to one of the columns.

They descended the steps and pressed a bell marked Housekeeper. Yes,
there was a flat to let on the ground floor; in fact, the whole of the
ground floor with the exception of this part of the hall and the rooms
on either side. The housekeeper threw her apron over her shoulder like a
plaid and unlocked a door in a wooden partition that divided the flat
called Number One from the rest of Ararat House.

They passed through and examined the two gaunt bedrooms: one of them
had an alcove, which pleased Michael very much. He decided that without
much difficulty it could be made to resemble a Carpaccio interior. The
dining-room was decorated with Spanish leather and must have been very
brilliantly lit by the late tenants, for everywhere from the ceiling and
walls electric wires protruded like asps. There was also a murky
kitchen; and finally the housekeeper led the way through double doors
into the drawing-room.

As soon as he had stepped inside, Michael was sure that he and Lily must
live here.

It was a room that recalled at the first glance one of those gigantic
saloons in ancient Venetian palaces; but as he looked about him he
decided that any assignment in known topography was absurd. It was a
room at once for Werther